In China online payments took off since 2009 and reached mass markets, triggering the release of third party non-bank payments provider regulations in 2010. With digital wallets from providers such as Alipay enjoying 500 to 700 million registered users, we’re talking very large mass markets here. Now the same looks set to happen in mobile payments. This blog shares Shift Thought analysis from our recently published “Digital Money in China” viewport.
BRC’s Retail Cost of Payment Collection Survey for 2012 released in May 2013 indicates that PayPal and coupons have increased to a level that now requires separate reporting. This accounts to over 5% of transactions in 2012, as compared to 1.66% the previous year. There has been a steady change in the proportion of sales transactions by each payment method as shown in our graph based on BRC data.
In a world where scale matters and players must continually reinvent themselves, it saddens us to see that not all make it through the metamorphosis.
Multiply Marketplace was a social networking service that first started in 2004 and built a 11-million strong community around blogging, photo sharing, videos and more.
In 2012 they moved their base from Florida, USA to Indonesia. The task at hand was to offer e-commerce services to the 350 million strong market in Philippines and Indonesia, while also discontinuing their blog services.
When I heard that Wanelo claims to have over 6 million users since it launched 2 years ago, I just had to experience the “want-need-love” they talk of, first hand.
In two previous blogs I discussed how branchless banking(BB) has taken off in Pakistan, and the way that the mobile and banking industries in Bangladesh are coming together to launch mobile financial services (MFS). This brings us to the logical question – how do they compare against each other? How is BB Pakistani style different to MFS a la Bangladesh? Which is likely to take off faster, and how are the people in each of the countries likely to benefit from the services?
Will Bangladesh, a pioneer of microfinance, be able to make a success of mobile financial services?
As part of their vision of Digital Bangladesh, they are engaged in rolling out services to the unbanked segment. This is part of a larger move towards Digital Money, with the Digital Money SAGE registering over 33 Digital Money initiatives, from over 46 players across a wide range of industries. Interestingly, these are not just local players. In September last year PayPal entered the country, on the initiative of freelancers who wanted a way to accept payments from people around the world.
At the confluence of multiple markets, Malaysia is the “Turkey of the East”.
As it is both a Sender and Receiver of remittances payment providers from multiple industries find it a perfect testing ground for innovative new services.
With enabling regulations having been in place for some time, I thought I should discuss why it is that traction has not been greater. And is this a hiccup, an initial inertia, possibly the calm before the storm? Is the tipping point going to come, although later than expected, and if so, is 2013 going to be the year?
Whether or not consumers will adopt is an outcome determined by a complex set of circumstances. Explore the Malaysia profile on our SAGE site and let me know what you think. We have an interesting free whitepaper on Mobile Money in Malaysia here. Over the next few months I shall share my thoughts, considering the determinants, the survey results and more, so we can together get a better sense of what is likely to happen.
Since the last update of the Branchless Banking regulations in Pakistan in June 2011, there has been an impressive growth in the number of BB agents so that they now overshadow other channels apart from POS. It seems Pakistan is poised to prove to the world that mobile operators and banks can work effectively together within a bank-based model to achieve the desired traction in banking the unbanked.
At Shift Thought we recently released two comprehensive 200+ page reports on Digital Money in Pakistan and Bangladesh. This blog shares some of our findings. This first post shares some thoughts on Pakistan. It will be followed by a post on Bangladesh and next a comparison of the development of mobile money in both countries.
In January 2012 I wrote a Mobile Money Brief on Singapore for the Clarion MMT Gateway. Awards had recently been announced regarding the call for collaboration on NFC.
Some of the key observations I made then then were that:
In September 2011 I wrote a Mobile Money Brief on India for the Clarion MMT Gateway, discussing the vibrant ecosystem and initiatives under way in India.
Some of the key observations then were that: